Changing Hard Drive From One PC to Another  

This is a compound question.  Hard drives for the most part are inter changeable from one PC to another for as long as the connections are the same and the system that you are putting it into will recognize it.  The problem that one may arise to is simply taking a primary hard drive out of one computer and putting it into another as a primary drive.  This will cause a world of problems in terms of the system booting into the operating system.  Below are a couple of issues that arrive.

•  If the hard drive you are installing has an operating system (such as Windows) already loaded on it, installing it into a PC that is totally different will cause device driver errors.  These error will cause system reboots, blue screens, and even altogether not allow the system to boot into the operating system.

•  Secondly, if you are running a Windows based PC, you will likely be facing a licensing issue.  If your computer has an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) label, then you are not allowed to transfer the operating system from one computer to another.

•  If a drive is going to be slave or a secondary drive, then you should not run into any problems.  Simply deleting all the files from your operating system will do, or you can format it at this point as well.

Never the less, it is always better to do a clean install of the operating system when installing a new (or used) hard drive to be a primary drive.

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